IN THE NEWS

Swati Sudha
Is it not strange that every time there’s something weird or depressing happening around us the news channels always have it on tape? Yes, something when exposed to media have positive repercussions, but, there is always another side to the coin. Remember that news when down in south a bride was mercilessly beaten up by her father because she didn’t want to marry. I mean showing all this on T.V was good as it brought into light the violence against women but why didn’t the media stop the man from thrashing his daughter instead of recording it all? It was because they wanted NEWS. If they would have just ‘said’ that a bride was beaten up then the real effect would be missing. Visual stimuli are more effective in catching attention than audio stimuli and audio visual still better. During a natural calamity the T.V will find an old man trapped beneath the debris and instead of pulling him out they’ll roll the camera so that they have NEWS.
A few days back a young girl was found dead in a car ‘bare bodied’. Well was that news to be telecast nation wide? The media stressed on the word ‘naked’ every time one heard the news. As it is the family was shattered by the death of their daughter and to add to their misery the media was busy embarrassing them by telling the entire nation that the girl was naked. Would they do the same if it was their daughter? Was this very personal issue a topic for national news? And also when a dalit woman was being beaten up in public, they had it on tape. I mean even when someone is being murdered then instead of saving that person they want to save their own skin and make news. What kind a world do we live in? Even when somebody is preparing to burn himself up the T.V people won’t stop him from killing himself. And why would they, after all this gives them NEWS to keep the audience glued to the T.V for one whole day or more. This is the plight of our nation. The media people cannot be blamed alone. The rule is that whatever is demanded that will be supplied the public itself is not satisfied by the distressing news they hear. They want pictures and videos to top it all up. So every time you turn on your T.V you will find all the irrelevant issues being shown as ‘the news’ which has no importance for the nation as a whole. But whatever is spicy enough to make the audience lick their fingers it’s got to be IN THE NEWS.

Swati Sudha